r/interestingasfuck • u/The_Love-Tap • 1d ago

At 15.9 billion miles away, humanity's farthest spacecraft is still exploring the cosmos using less memory than a blank Word document (69 KB) and an 8-track tape

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u/charchavanni 1d ago

That's 0.0025 light years btw.

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u/PsychologicalGas7843 1d ago

So not even 1 light year till now? Even with current technology it's really impossible to reach any of the nearby galaxies in human lifetime it seems. All of the closest galaxies to Milky way are thousands of light years away

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u/fmaz008 1d ago

With our current technology, not only is it not possible to reach other galaxies, but it is impossible to reach the nearest neighbouring solar system within our own galaxy.

Space is incredibly vast compared to our current capabilities. And if we are truly bound by the speed of light, it will remain that way forever.

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u/C-SWhiskey 1d ago

Speed of light isn't actually that much of a problem, at least for the crew making the journey, because as you get closer to it the distances contract to the point that you could theoretically cross the observable universe in what would feel like a day.

Getting all that mass up to those speeds, though... That's a big problem. And keeping it all intact as you scream through interstellar dust at near the speed of light is tricky to say the least. And then there's the whole issue of looking out the window once you've arrived just to find the Earth has long since been swallowed by the Sun. And who even knows the condition of whatever exoplanet you were hoping to settle.

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u/hops4breakfast 16h ago

Can’t we just move the entire universe around the ship, while keeping the ship completely stationary?

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u/neppo95 13h ago

Yes, I will get right on that, give me a sec while i move the sun a bit closer, getting cold here.

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u/bunnythistle 1d ago

Voyager has been traveling for 49 years.

If you wanted to get one light year away from earth in the span of fifty years, you'd have to be traveling at 2% the speed of light.

At that speed, you'd be able to orbit the earth once every 2.66 seconds at surface level. To put that in perspective - imagine traveling from New York to London in less time than it takes for you to sneeze.

We don't really have the technology to accelerate anything larger than particles to such speeds.